The paradox in the message contained in the worrying statistics from Nigeria’s electoral management body, the Independent National Electoral Commission, after the just-concluded general elections is difficult to miss: the more it seems Nigerians have embraced democracy as the most preferred mode of governance and system of effecting leadership change, (given that this is the longest stretch of democratic practice in the country) the more they distance themselves from the very activity that gives expression to that singular reality: voting. That is, going by the dismal voter turnout. It is like desiring to make an omelet while refusing to break eggs.
For clarification, voting with the feet, as used above, which means to shun or oppose an activity, connotes a negation of a democratic reality. And that was what Nigerians, disturbingly, did in the 2019 elections, deciding to shun the ballot while simultaneously not abhorring the democratic essence, obviously having no alternative to democracy, however flawed. Unless this is checked and redressed, I posit, democracy may be deemed abhorrent with dire consequences for the nation.
During the week, two experts on elections and democracy, Dr Cyril Obi of the US-based African Peacebuilding Network and Dayo Olaide, a development specialist based in Abuja, in separate telephone discussions, offered interesting perspectives and insights that propelled this discourse. Those poignant insights are reflected herein. Besides, my ringside observations while monitoring the elections in some parts of the Lagos metropolis were invaluable and offer points to note in interrogating and explaining the voter apathy phenomenon and its implications for Nigeria’s democracy.
Recall that INEC had announced that 84 million registered to vote in the 2019 elections but 72 million collected their Permanent Voter Cards, a requisite to vote at the polls in line with the electoral guidelines. This represented 86 per cent of the total registered voters. Remarkably, on February 26, on the first round of elections, only a meagerly 28 million voted in the presidential election, representing a mere 34.75 per cent, the lowest since the return to civil rule in 1999. Eventually, President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress was announced the winner with just 15.2 million votes, in a country with an estimated population of 180 million, while his closest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, polled 11.3 million, out of the total 27 million valid votes cast. INEC deemed 1,289,607 votes as invalid. The huge economic waste on the nation in INEC printing ballot papers for 72 million voters only for 28 million voters to turn up is mind-blowing. More than 411 million ballots were printed for the presidential election to cater for 84 million voters. Ironically, while INEC’s budget more than quadrupled from about N50bn in 1999 to about N243bn in 2019, voter turnout has shrunk progressively in the same period.
Data released by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance on the 2019 elections indicated that “the rate of voter turnout in the 2019 elections in Nigeria (34.75 per cent) is the lowest of all recent elections held on the African continent.” The group further notes that “the turnout…happens to be the second lowest in the history of elections held in African countries — the lowest being 32.3 per cent in the 1996 Zimbabwean presidential election.”
The following are the top 10 countries with the highest voter turnout in their most recent elections: Rwanda, 98.2 per cent; Equatorial Guinea, 92.7 per cent; Angola, 90.4 per cent; Seychelles, 90.1 per cent; Guinea Bissau, 89.3 per cent; Zimbabwe, 86.8 per cent; Sierra Leone, 84.2 per cent; Kenya, 79.5 per cent; Liberia, 75.2 per cent, and Burundi, 73.4 per cent.
Conversely, the least 10 include Cote d’Ivoire, 52.9 per cent; Algeria, 49.4 per cent; Mozambique, 48.6 per cent; Sudan, 46.4 per cent; Sao Tome and Principe, 46.1 per cent, Democratic Republic of Congo, 45.4 per cent; Mali, 42.7 per cent; Egypt, 41.1 per cent; Cape Verde, 35.5 per cent and Nigeria, 34.8 per cent as the last.
However, if the voter turnout in the presidential election “does not inspire confidence in the democratic trajectory of Africa’s most populous country,” as John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria and the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, put it in his recent article, the turnout at the subnational elections on March 9 was more than depressing.
According to SUNDAY PUNCH, March 17, 2019, in Lagos State with 6.5 million registered voters, while 5.5 million obtained the PVCs, “figures released by INEC showed that only 1,006,074 actually voted during the governorship election, representing 18.29% of the voters with the PVCs in the state.” The newspaper informed that, “The turnout of voters in the governorship and state House of Assembly polls was lower than the presidential and National Assembly elections held two weeks earlier.”
In my review of the presidential election, (see, The debt Buhari owes Nigerians, The PUNCH, Thursday, February 28, 2019) I had stressed that “the first debt for Buhari is to ensure, in the next four years, the restoration of faith of a large mass of disenchanted Nigerians in the democratic process.” My advisory to the President was premised on the “huge number of the electorate, 64.4 per cent,” whom I said “shunned the polls… displaying an uncanny disinterestedness… in an electoral process that led to his re-election.” My conclusion: “A nation is not democratic… simply because it holds regular elections as scheduled. It is, because it is anchored on popular participation and citizen engagement in the whole process.” A democracy that serves only politicians, who appear ritualistically every election period, without the demos is simply a “demonstration of craze” Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, sang years ago.
To be concluded
jnwokeoma@punchng.com. 07085183894
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